Why We Fired A Truck Washing Client

We fired one of our truck washing clients last week.

Denver truck washing service

They were one of our smaller truck washing clients so this time it was an easy decision to make. But we did the same thing with one of our largest clients a few months ago for a different reason.

The small client and the large client are both divisions of large national firms. The small one is only small due to the number of trucks they had us wash at their Denver location.

The corporate office in another state informed the Denver office that they were changing their policy on payments to go to 60 day terms. Which means we would be lending them money every month.

Since we pay our crews every two weeks and our fuel bill, rent, etc. every month,  it means we would be paying all the expenses involved in washing their trucks many times before they ever paid their bill to us.

And this client didn’t realize how much extra effort it took to wash their trucks. They were only available to be washed on Saturday mornings between 8am and noon. And they kept their trucks inside their warehouse so when our crew got there, they had to wait for the trucks to be pulled outside to be washed. Most trucking accounts have their trucks parked outside and we can wash them whenever we get there.

And while we had adjusted our scheduling to accommodate them, it took much more time than a similar size truck wash account would take. This made their account of only 5-7 trucks much less profitable.

It’s easy to just “keep doing what you’ve been doing” without checking your progress. But many things change over time and if you’re not on top of how the changes affect your business, you won’t have a business very long. A lot of small businesses do a lot of work with nothing to show for it at the end of the month.

You have to know when a client reaches the point that their account isn’t worth the time and effort involved. And you have to be willing to pull the plug and let them go down the drain without taking you with them.